Rise and fall of JVM languages • Hacker News Board

Re: Rise and fall of JVM languages

#231

Post by vram22 » Sun, Aug 27, 2017, 9:28 PM UTC

cutler wrote: post #221

vram22 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Looking a bit like Kotlin is worth checking out, based on the comments in this thread, and also that other one some days ago, which was triggered by Steve Yegge's post about it. The only one drawback I can think of as of now, is that it is only being developed by one company - JetBrains (unless it is open source and allows and has contributors, which I have not checked). Update: I checked, it is open sour…

These days a new language which isn't open source wouldn't have much of a chance, I reckon.

Question is are you using the term open source strictly as it is meant, i.e. the source is available, or as some use it, loosely, to mean both open source and free (as in beer)? [1]

[1] I ask that because all 4 possible combinations of open/closed source and paid/free software exist. But "open source" is often used loosely by people to mean both open source and free as in beer, including by well-known tech journalists or authors who should know better.

I think even closed source languages which are paid, have a chance, just maybe not very big a one. But that is not a problem as such. Not everyone is aiming to be a unicorn - more like the opposite. [ This idea of "go big or go home" (propounded by VC's) is deleterious to the public health (TM:) ] But the chance is probably big enough for a company or three (for that language) to live on - provided they get their act right (enough) on all fronts, including tech and marketing. And even big enough for an ecosystem to build around them. Such things still exist today, just that they are not so much talked/written about as much as open source and the latest "hot" trends are. Blame the media and the cool kids for that.

And I say this as a strong (though not exclusive) proponent, user and somewhat of a practitioner of open source.

Re: Rise and fall of JVM languages

#232

Post by Nekorosu » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

sooheon wrote: post #112

Nekorosu wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clojure supports class based OOP? Never heard of it. Could you give me a link to the relevant documentation page?

Not really a OOP programmer, but I think the following cover some reasonable subset of OOP: https://clojure.org/reference/multimethods https://clojure.org/reference/protocols

It's not class-based OOP.

Re: Rise and fall of JVM languages

#233

Post by rusk » Tue, Aug 29, 2017, 7:40 AM UTC

shakna wrote: post #230

rusk wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I understand what you're saying but cobol runs in an environment that is optimised for cobol, and I'd expect where this were to be java you would have a similar arrangement in place. For a trivial example of what I'm talking about check out nailgun [0] [0] http://www.martiansoftware.com/nailgun/

Yes, a change to Java would require a large architecture change. Notably from mainframes to something a little bit more familiar to most people. But when Cobol works, is blisteringly fast, and they can afford to hire and train people to work with it, I don't see the benefits of Java, at all. Especially not at the enormous costs of a major architecture re-work in systems that are live 24/7, and downtime is counted in…

would require a large architecture change

No, it wouldn't. Java is already used on a broad scale for this kind of thing. The ways in which it needs to be tuned for this kind of thing are in widespread use.